So, how is Pagos?

[Tsumdere]

Long post incoming.

As of yesterday, I hit 35 and obtained my relic weapon and here are a few thoughts after doing the grind.

1. The map design is cool… in theory. Once you hit 35, you find out pretty quickly that the most efficient way to get light right now is killing the sleeping void dragons. That is an amazing idea done horribly wrong as the void dragons respawn quickly, give only feeble light and thus incentivize chaining two of them back to back.
If this had been something where the sleeping void dragons gave brilliant light and did not respawn for a while (as in 30 min or so), this would be a great system where high level players would blitz around the map killing obstacles for the lower level players, benefiting both parties. Once dragons are dead, they could go back to chaining or bunnies and have a reason to stop doing those activities and socialize with the instance every once in a while.

Besides that however, the map is incredibly anti-player and anti-fun. Aetherytes are placed at terrible levels, especially the northwest one which is 30 when the people who chain up there are 27-29. The aetherytes should be 21 - 27 - 32.
The map ends up being so anti-fun there is no reason to explore because you’ll just die. And don’t you dare die in Pagos because there is a 60% chance you won’t be picked up because people don’t want to lose a few exp points so you don’t lose a million.

2. The players are toxic. I don’t use this word willy-nilly, but God damn. Pagos shout is terrible. It’s nowhere near as bad as other chats for sure, but for a game that prides itself on its community, it is shameful and embarrassing. More than half the time it’s an internet slap fight between those who love chaining (for some reason) and those who don’t. Those who don’t and are holding SE accountable for literally releasing trash mobs as content get called every single name in the book : lazy, entitled, mad 'cuz bad, and other things I can’t put here because I’ll get banned.
You don’t like chaining mobs until your fingers bleed? I bet you are a stupid, lazy casual who just wants things handed to you instead of you know… engaging content.

Also, I was actually in a party where a BLM openly admitted to using a parser and used it to call out people for making us drop chain. I'm pro-parser but... really?

3. Coming off the point above, this relic is not for casuals. They have completely overshot their target audience and made relic for midcore -> hardcore players. Casual players do not have the time for Pagos. Why?
Simply put, Pagos is unpopular and finding parties for it is already proving absolutely buttblastingly annoying. A good chunk of the players (mid to hardcore) are already 30+, so those seeking parties lower than that are having a very difficult time. When I was sub 30 just a few days ago, it would on average take 70 - 80 minutes to make a party that stayed together. That's absolutely ridiculous. That’s over an hour just to try and play the content. I ended up going into Pagos and soloing challenge log until I was invited to a party. That would take around 40-50 minutes. Now, at higher levels making a party takes about 15 - 20 minutes which is bearable, but still too long for a casual playstyle. With old relics, you could immediately hop into whatever you needed for the step and spend those 15-20 minutes progressing instead of picking your nose in Kugane. You cannot do that with Pagos.
Another point against the casuals, you are forced to do one activity and one activity only. In previous light farms, you were allowed to do whatever you wanted for light, but now it’s one thing and one thing only : chaining. This is because SE got their panties in a twist that we did not play the content like we wanted. Even in Anemos people realized that chaining in this game was a bad idea.

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The most frustrating aspect of it all, is that there is these fragments of good ideas that are completely wasted. Mutations and adaptations? Super cool. Give me more of this. Bunnies? Nice in theory but they don’t give light, exp, and give crap rewards. Hakutaku eye cluster used to get a special item from a boss? Amazing! Too bad it’s the only NM that works like that and it’s for an optional item that has no relevance to the relic.

Anyways, I’m done with my (1) relic. I am the kind of person who goes for all relics as I even have all of my Anemos relics even though I found Anemos dull as bricks, but I will not touch Pagos again until it is nerfed into the ground.

[Edax]

Anyways, I’m done with my (1) relic. I am the kind of person who goes for all relics as I even have all of my Anemos relics even though I found Anemos dull as bricks, but I will not touch Pagos again until it is nerfed into the ground.

Funny how Anemos was a bit dull yet people still made sure to complete all their sets and brag about how many weapons they upgrade through Pazuzu. Even if the content was easy, it still took a significant commitment of time to do all that so clearly Anemos was an experiment that succeeded. It was the perfect casual content, not to hard, but was worth logging for and burning up your time in.

[Kazgrel]

Funny how Anemos was a bit dull yet people still made sure to complete all their sets and brag about how many weapons they upgrade through Pazuzu. Even if the content was easy, it still took a significant commitment of time to do all that so clearly Anemos was an experiment that succeeded. It was the perfect casual content, not to hard, but was worth logging for and burning up your time in.

I ended up with 75 additional Pazuzu feathers past the ones needed to make all 15 weapons due to going back and helping friends out; be it they were leveling or just trying to get more crystals for another weapon or armor set. If I grew tired of bashing mobs, I could take a few mins to crack jokes in shout.

The far more relaxed pace of Anemos, as much as it could be decried for coddling lazy/afk play, was far superior to the current shitshow in Pagos.

[WhyAmIHere]

Funny how Anemos was a bit dull yet people still made sure to complete all their sets and brag about how many weapons they upgrade through Pazuzu. Even if the content was easy, it still took a significant commitment of time to do all that so clearly Anemos was an experiment that succeeded. It was the perfect casual content, not to hard, but was worth logging for and burning up your time in.

At least with the people within my circle of acquaintances, that was the case already. They disliked it for the grind but still saw it as the best method to cap on weekly tomes. So, it had even that going for it.

[Alleo]

Funny how Anemos was a bit dull yet people still made sure to complete all their sets and brag about how many weapons they upgrade through Pazuzu. Even if the content was easy, it still took a significant commitment of time to do all that so clearly Anemos was an experiment that succeeded. It was the perfect casual content, not to hard, but was worth logging for and burning up your time in.

Its not hard to get something in Anemos thanks to the train. Thus even though I only went into this to get the mount I still got two basic Anemos weapons out of this, simply because the NM dropped so many items. And that was only me being lvl 12, going to the train after maybe 1 or 2 days and also only staying in there for a couple of days too. (Not even one week) So the train alone made it possible to get a lot of stuff quite fast. But does that mean that the content itself is good or even fun? For me its not. I greatly dislike Anemos (and Eureka as a whole) and found even the train boring (but at least it got me progress).

So people may have gotten a lot of weapons or gear by simply leveling up to max level and farming a bit. Now if we had the same rules as Pagos this would have been way worse. And thats the problem: You need to go through the whole Eureka to get the final relic weapon and that means Pagos. So even if Anemos was more casual friendly, Pagos is not thus they will hit their wall there. And seeing how the devs did not like the train and did everything to stop it..I cant imagine how the last two parts would be better.

(And some people might just simply get every relic because they dont have anything else to do but I do wonder how many relics the true casual players own)

[Solarra]

Funny how Anemos was a bit dull yet people still made sure to complete all their sets and brag about how many weapons they upgrade through Pazuzu. Even if the content was easy, it still took a significant commitment of time to do all that so clearly Anemos was an experiment that succeeded. It was the perfect casual content, not to hard, but was worth logging for and burning up your time in.

Well I didn't do the bragging bit but I did go into Anemos quite a lot after getting my first relic and the dyeable gear. I'm not saying Anemos was perfect (I had plenty of issues with it before I joined the train) but I always felt my time in there was well spent and decently rewarded. I never had trouble getting groups and the train meant I could go in with low-level friends and help them level up.

So yes, despite this stage being far easier to complete than previous relics, I think you may be right about it working well as casual content. If Pagos had been similar, I'd probably be spending most of my time in there and working on a second or third weapon upgrade. As it is, I am level 23 and have no intention of going back unless significant changes are made. Considering they appear to have deliberately derailed the train, I'm not really expecting that to happen.